The Polikarpov I-16 Soviet Fighter

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An overview of the Polikarpov I-16 Soviet Fighter while highlighting some places it shows up in pop culture (Movies/Video Games).

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Movies/Video Games Featured:

Air Strike 2018
The Winter War 1989
Empire of the Sun 1987
My Way 2010
Youjo Senki 2019
War Thunder (Video Game)
Fortress of War 2010
Battle of Sevastopol 2015
Il-2 Sturmovik (Video Game)
Dneprovskiy Rubezh 2009

#ww2 #soviet #aircraft #planes

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35 thoughts on “The Polikarpov I-16 Soviet Fighter”

  3. And next we'll be surprised to learn that some army would seriously consider introducing pogo sticks for off-road locomotion.
    But seriously: It's amazing what odds and tidbits about all manners of arms – including long forgotten ones! – you can learn from this channel.

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  5. USA: "Our equipment is built by the lowest bidder."

    USSR: "We have that beat, ours is quality built by convict labor!"

    Fun Fact: In the book "God is My Copilot" by Robert Scott, he mentions that in the early aircraft with manual gear retraction, pilots would fly upside down while cranking to let gravity assist in raising the gear.

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  20. Yeah. The I-16 was the successor to the I-15. Their day – was prior to WWII. Mostly in Spain and China.

    The thing with China – was that the Japanese were using older pre-war aircraft their too. Yes – the I-16's in China did eventually have to face A6M's but that was later.

    The Chinese got a lot of their equipment from the Germans and such aircraft as these from the Russians. The biggest problem the Chinese had – was the experience level of their pilots. Here – they kept getting killed before they had enough experience – not to.

    That was the reason they hired the American Volunteer Group – as these men were all well trained. Chennault had also been working with the Chinese Air Force and took a lot of the lessons he learned for use with the AVG. One of the big things he organized – was an Observation Corps what would phone in the locations of Japanese Aircraft. This was a similar, cruder system than the Back Up System the British had to their Radar.

    As with the Coast Watchers in the Solomons – the Japanese were spotted and the defenders warned that they were coming. This let the defending aircraft get to altitude ahead of the Japanese. This was one problem the Allies had in New Guinea – at Port Moresby – they didn't get a lot of warning that the Japanese were coming over the Owen Stanley's. The flip side of that – is that when the Allies went after the Japanese Air Bases on the other side of those mountains – the Japanese didn't get a lot of warning either.
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  21. Italian pilots serving the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, also scored a number of kills against the I-16, while flying in the Fiat CR.32. Italian pilots scored well against them again, as participants in Operation Barbarossa, in 1941-1942; this time, they flew the Macchi C.200.

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  27. The initial versions with the enclosed cockpits didn't look half bad, really like a 30s air racer. But the canopy was of extremely poor design and got quickly removed: With the open cockpit any potential good lines are destroyed and it looks like a cartoon plane.

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  34. The I-16 was NOT too old to be used as a fighter plane for the VVS as they did show its prowess in the Caucasus region as far as 1944.

    With all monoplanes being bigger and more powerful, it made it real hard to control and navigate across the Caucasus mountains and the Soviets soon realized that too. Apart from their I-16 fleets that they still had post-Barbarossa, the VVS was receiving tons of newer aircraft like the Lavochkin La-5 and 7s and the Yakolev Yak-3 fighters.
    However, those newer, more powerful and massively bigger monoplane fighters were more suited for open area combat where massive evasive actions can be pulled easily and they can openly open the throttle and go against any Luftwaffe planes they came in contact with which, the Luftwaffe was also facing the same issue with their Messerschmitt BF-109s and Focke-wolf FW-190s.
    When these planes went into the Caucasus, it was soo hard to move across the mountainous terrain and valleys that these modern fighters had to cut alot of speed just to not clip anything and crash to their deaths. The VVS soon realized this too and to counter air superiority in the region, they didn't choose to toss new planes to the region but instead sent whatever remaining I-16 that they had in hand together with the older yet still workable I-15 biplanes to airbases near the Turkish borders.

    When the Luftwaffe, Romanian and VVS pilots met, the Axis airforces pilots were in for a rude shock that what they perceived as an older and way outdated plane was effortlessly tracing their evasive moves across the valley despite them ducking and weaving and whatever speed was safer but still fast for them and the I-16s had no issue tracing them. Many of the Axis pilots were in fact shot down in the valley by the Soviets in either the I-15 or I-16 (Mostly I-16). Estimate was that between 1942 with Sevestapol and till 1944 after the Soviets pushed into both Germany and Romania, the I-16 squadrons in the Caucasus region shot down over 400 planes at the loss of just about 140 which, in retrospect, was pretty good considering the treacherous terrain.

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